Here’s a new video called "Crossing the line, the new intifada comes to campus" that equates the campus movement of criticizing Israeli behavior with anti-Semitism. It was sent out by the Forward today, as an advertisement. Zionists in the bunker; Hannah Schwarzschild writes, "They clearly think their backs are against the ropes. And the logical leaps in here are just delicious…" Random notes:
"But there is one issue that seems to evoke more passion and hostility than any other [than Tibet or Darfur]."
The situation on campus is a "deteriorating one," Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents admits
"I happen to like Natan Sharansky’s definition of when it becomes anti-Semitism," says a woman from Stand With Us. Three d’s: Delegitimize the country, double standard about that country, demonize the country.
"The thin red line is when you start to question Israel’s existence." –says a hasbara fellow on campus.
"Jewish students see these things and say where am I?… Is this 1939 and Germany?" says another Israel lobbyist student.
Another student seems to deny that hundreds of civilians were killed in Gaza.
The David Project, hasbara fellows, Malcolm Hoenlein, and Stand With Us. Not very persuasive company for young idealistic people…
Israel has apparently declared war on the progressive American college student — you know, kind of like they’ve declared war on UN observers and humanitarian aid workers. Kind of explains where Witty factors into all of this, doesn’t it?
Even more so, on their professors.
“”I happen to like Natan Sharansky’s definition of when it becomes anti-Semitism,” says a woman from Stand With Us. Three d’s: Delegitimize the country, double standard about that country, demonize the country.”
Whaaaat? Has that country gone totally insane?
Then every thinking and humanitarian individual is now an anti-semite, and should be proud of it.
Look at her terminology: a “country.” A country renders it anti-semitism. Not even “Israel.” A country.
RE: “Has that country gone totally insane?” – MRW
MY COMMENT: Regarding Sharansky, Liebermann, Taitz etc. – I suspect that many individuals who lived for some period of years in the Soviet Union are indeed “insane”.
Fans of the hypothetical concept of Orly Taitz in an oubliette – link to facebook.com
Who added that second ‘n’ to Lieberman? Sassie, is that you “messing with my head”? Here Sassie girl, go fetch!
P.S. Sassie asked me to remind everyone to please consider adopting a ‘shelter pet’.
RE: “Fans of the hypothetical concept of Orly Taitz in an oubliette”
SEE: Orly Taitz: Obama policies are ‘clear and present danger to Israel’ – Haaretz, 08/22/09
(EXCERPTS) U.S. President Barack Obama’s domestic and foreign policies pose “a clear and present danger to Israel,” says the driving force behind the campaign to prove Obama was not born in the United States and therefore ineligible to serve as president.
The so-called “birther” movement that alleges that Obama was born in Kenya found fertile ground for publicity during the perennially slow news days of late July and early August. As cable and online news outlets devoted more and more time to the phenomenon, Israeli-American activist Orly Taitz emerged at the forefront of the campaign, and her star steadily rose until a fateful MSNBC interview in which she referred to her detractors as “Obama’s brownshirts.”…..
…She believes Obama poses a threat to Israel not only because of his support of radical Islamic groups such as Hamas, but also because of his “radical socialist” policies, that will bring the United States to “totalitarianism and Stalinism.”…
ENTIRETY – link to haaretz.com
The anti Israel speakers featured on the video said the following:
“We Palestinians have nothing to dialogue with Zionists.”
“Israel doesn’t meet the requirements of a legitimate state.”
“Hey, hey. Ho, ho. The state of Israel has got to go.”
“If history is any indication, there’ll be peace when you are gone and we’re in control again.”
“Zionism must be destroyed. It must be gotten rid of. Every aspect of it.”
Besides these statements and chants, there were also equations between Israel and Nazism and accusations of apartheid and genocide.
Regarding Schransky’s 3 D’s- Delegitimization, Double Standard and Demonization, I would say that Double Standard is not a valid problem, because for whatever reason people choose to attack Israeli policy and not Tibet or Darfur, that’s really their business and Israel needs to defend itself without saying, why are you focusing on Israel. But delegitimization and demonization are in fact real problems. They are not necessarily signs of antisemitism, but they are indications of extremism and confrontation and away from dialogue and calm discussion.
Maybe the Jewish groups represented on the video are not progressive, but the anti Israel voices on the video are not worthy of praise.
Funny, substitute “Nazi” for “Zionist” and “French” for “Palestinian” and would you still be characterizing those statements as extremists, WJ?
WJ: But delegitimization and demonization are in fact real problems.
And they are hallmarks of Israeli attitudes and policies toward Palestinians.
I was just about to write that, Shmuel. And WJ, “because for whatever reason people choose to attack Israeli policy and not Tibet or Darfur.” Tibet=Darfur=Gaza. That’s why ‘people’ are not attacking Tibet or Darfur.
I am sorry for using the victims as shorthand for the victimizers. I meant China and Sudan.
We already know that you compulsive mix up the victims and victimizers in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Apologizing for this little incident is like apologizing after shooting a man’s son that you got blood all over his living room carpet.
The images from Gaza are simply too strong for hasbara to be effective any more. The women from the David project says “we know Israel is not an apartheid state. We know Zionism is not racism”. You can’t look at what Israel is doing in Gaza and argue those 2 point successfully. It may have been possible 20 or 50 years ago but everyone has access to youtoob today. Web 2.0 will kill Zionism in its current format. Once Israel loses the campuses the war is lost. Zionism has drifted too far away from Western public opinion. The Bush years were an aberration. Israel wanted them to go on forever.
And you can’t argue with a straight face that Yesha is not colonialism. The IDF does its best to destroy any photographic evidence of what goes on behind the wall but it only takes one al jazeera video to do the damage. And there is so much abuse to film.
What are the borders of this country which is so under attack ? Any answers?
Like I keep saying, how exactly can Israel expect other countries to recognize its rightful borders when Israel itself does not recognize any rightful borders.
Israel has established borders with Egypt and Jordan. It has not established borders with Syria, Lebanon or the Palestinians.
Yeah. You can’t actually make an enclosed shape with two straight lines. Basic geometry continues to thwart Zionism. Not to mention basically morality — “But officer, I didn’t rape that woman! I only penetrated one of three viable orifices!”
I love when someone proves you wrong, your follow ups are so classic Chaos. I will fall asleep with a smile on my face ;)
Usually states only have established borders w/ countries which recognize their existence.
Actually, WJ is not correct that Israel has established borders with Egypt and Jordan. Egypt and Jordan have established borders, period, and do not contest any of the areas that Israel claims as its own, but as Israel doesn’t delineate its borders either with or in Gaza and the West Bank, neither Egypt nor Jordan know what the full extent of their border with Israel is. They know where their own countries borders are, but they don’t know whether they have a border with Israel or with Gaza in the case of Egypt and with Israel or with the West Bank in the case of Jordan.
Usually, states will delineate what their own borders are. Israel has not and does not.
RE: “Jewish students see these things and say where am I?… Is this 1939 and Germany?” says another Israel lobbyist student.
SEE: The Trial of Israel’s Campus Critics, by David Theo Goldberg and Saree Makdisi, Tikkun Magazine, September/October 2009
(EXCERPT)…It is an extraordinary fact that no fewer than thirty-three distinct organizations-including AIPAC, the Zionist Organization of America, the American Jewish Congress, and the Jewish National Fund-are gathered together today as members or affiliates of the Israel on Campus Coalition. The coalition is an overwhelmingly powerful presence on American college campuses for which there is simply no equivalent on the Palestinian or Arab side. Its self-proclaimed mission is not merely to monitor our colleges and universities. That, after all, is the commitment of Campus Watch, which was started by pro-Israel activists in 2002. It is, rather (and in its own words), to generate “a pro-active, pro-Israel agenda on campus.” There is, accordingly, disproportionate and unbalanced intervention on campuses across the country by a coalition of well-funded organizations, who have no time for — and even less interest in — the niceties of intellectual exchange and academic process. Insinuation, accusation, and defamation have become the weapons of first resort to respond to argument and criticism directed at Israeli policies. As far as these outside pressure groups (and their campus representatives) are concerned, the intellectual and academic price that the scholarly community pays as a result of this kind of intervention amounts to little more than collateral damage…
ENTIRE ARTICLE –link to tikkun.org
P.S. In case you’re wondering, Rabbi Lerner gives me a nickel for every time I post this :) OMG, I can’t believe I used that creepy ‘smiley face’ thingy! That’s so juvenile. I swore to G-d, I’d never use that. Well, I guess that’s what swearing to G-d gets ya!
THAT MAKES ME SO MAD: i/ instead of /i! What’s a dyslexic to do?
Along these lines, the LA Times just published a great dissenting Op Ed with regard to the treatment of the “Irvine 11″ at UC-Irvine. Maybe there’s hope.
link to latimes.com
Since Dalybean didn’t feel it was necessary to include what this ‘great Op Ed’ was actually dissenting, here it is, a much more coherent Op-Ed from someone who knows something about the legality of free speech (which is the issue, not Israel’s Hasbara tactics)
link to articles.latimes.com
TM @ Jewlicious also addresses the issue:
link to jewlicious.com
So where was your massive concern for free speech and open debate when this was going on?
link to mondoweiss.net
Or this?
link to mondoweiss.net
And we are supposed to have a double standard? You should complain to whoever feeds you these links, yonira, or maybe you should have them just post themselves because it’s pretty clear you can’t handle the context arguments yourself.
The net effect of the video will be to scare Jewish students who support Israel (to any degree). Whether the handful of students and adults supporting Israel on the video are enticing or convincing enough to recruit the students to fight the militant hateful anti Israel speech is a different question.
“The net effect of the video will be to scare Jewish students who support Israel (to any degree).” And the net goal of Zionism is to scare Jews outside of Israel so that they flee to Israel and cut themselves off from their non-Jewish family and friends, like any good cultist. Oh, and kindly hand your foreign passport to the friendly Mossad officer. Thank you very much.
If you think college kids are this easy to bamboozle, think again.
The net goal of Zionism is to survive. The challenge of hateful anti Israel speech on campuses is nothing to sneeze at. It will require fortitude and guts from Israel supporters to organize against that hateful speech. No bamboozling required, merely courage.
How does making dual citizenship Israelis out to be potential Mossad assassins contribute to the survival of anyone?
WJ: The net goal of Zionism is to survive.
Where does settlement in the OT, for example, fit into that theory?
We patiently await WJ’s response to Schmuel’s question. (And ponder historical precedent.)
Settlement in the OT does not fit into that theory. Settlement in the OT is a case where a determined minority can override the wavering majority. (That was the case until Begin became Prime Minister in 77.) After Begin became Prime Minister the settlement of the OT became a separate priority, that in fact undermines Israel’s survival. (Given the Palestinians’ desire to see Israel disappear, an occupation untainted by settlers would be “defensible” on grounds of survival, whereas an occupation of settlement is not “defensible” on those grounds.)
As far as the use of passport identities of innocent citizens, that certainly puts those citizens in danger’s way. Not knowing enough about the structure of Hamas and the replacability or irreplacability of the arms dealer killed in Dubai, I cannot say whether this assassination was worthwhile from a strategic point of view.
(Morally- all killing is evil, if imprisonment is an option. Killing an arms dealer, without killing any innocents next to him is morally superior to killing innocents. Legally- killing a man on a foreign country’s territory undermines the rule of law.)
The net goal of Zionists is to expand.
WJ: After Begin became Prime Minister the settlement of the OT became a separate priority, that in fact undermines Israel’s survival.
So would you say that Begin was (at least in this) an anti-Zionist, or that the settlement project is anathema to “the net goal of Zionism” (keeping in mind that it has been more or less actively supported – and not only by minority leverage – by every Israeli government)? Can other actions of various Israeli governments be characterised as “anti-Zionist” and, if so, how is that significant, especially in the context of the widespread dichotomy of Zionism vs. anti-Zionism (anti-Semitisms)?
In a philosophical vein (related to another thread): How much of Israel’s actions and those of various tendencies within the Zionist movement do you think can be attributed to the “will to live” and how much should be ascribed to the “will to power”?
I think that Begin would not accept my definition of Zionism and he would have asserted that the net goal of Zionism is to survive (with sovereignty) in the Land of Israel. He would have posed the question, if the Peel proposal of 1937 had been adopted, would I have been satisfied for Israel to survive in the small piece of land given to the Zionists under that plan? He might have posed the question: what about the Uganda plan?
Thus I am led to conclude that there is more than one definition to Zionism.
The post Begin governments that continued with the settlement enterprise can be seen as two types: settlements as bargaining chips for negotiation and settlement for Land of Israel sake. I think that Rabin felt that settlements were bargaining chips that he did not wish to trade in for nothing. Obviously Shamir, Sharon and Netanyahu would be more in the Land of Israel sake mode of thought.
I think when Israel suffered extensive casualties in the Yom Kippur War and Begin traded the Sinai for peace, whatever expansionist ideas Israel
possessed were replaced by more practical goals. Certainly to the Palestinians who see the West Bank as their main goal of sovereignty, Israel still seems expansionist, but considering the large expanse of the Sinai that was returned by Begin in 79, I think the term expansionism is misused.
Zionism’s origins may have included threads that were devoted to the “will to power” rather than just the “will to live”. I think the post Yom Kippur War phase of Zionism is much more practical than that and mostly focused on the Land of Israel (in the case of Likud) and the will to live (in the case of Rabin).
You know, we can make this really easy. Why don’t we just check out what Begin himself said?
And that was him “accepting” the result of UN 181 in Israel’s name. I think that tells us exactly what Zionism is. Thanks for tipping us off on who to look up, WJ!
WJ,
Thanks for your answers. Settlement in the WB, Sinai, Gaza and the Golan were of course in full swing, long before Begin came to power, and were pursued by all Israeli governments (including the second Rabin government) long after he was gone. Begin/Sharon may have altered the settlement project somewhat, but they did not change its essence. Expansionist ambitions and the will to power do not exclude pragmatic decisions from time to time, and often factor in concessions in order to preserve the structure as a whole (the evacuation of the Israeli settlements in Gaza being a case in point).
The survival-motive for Zionism may have been true at various times and for various people/streams within Zionism, but that is not how history has played out. Like the idea of “Jewish and democratic”, it has simply been contradicted over and over by the actions of Israel and virtually all streams within the Zionist movement. It is frequently explained that domination has not been an end in itself, but a means to security and survival, but I believe there have been many examples of Israel acting to acquire, maintain and demonstrate power that cannot be explained merely in terms of the will to live. In fact, I think the entire approach – by virtually all brands of Zionism – to basic Palestinian needs and rights has been coloured by bad faith and aspirations that go well beyond the desire to survive.
It’s time liberal Zionists started asking themselves where Israel and Zionism are going and whether liberalism and Zionism can ever really be compatible (in the real world).